by Griffith, KF
I turned back to see the big guy thrashing the guards around. They were zapping him with their electric gloves while he was shaking them like rag dolls. I could smell the electricity.
“Go!” He shouted through gritted teeth. “I won’t be able to hold them off for too much longer.”
“This is crazy,” I said to myself. I didn’t know where I was or what in the world was going on. But these two guys – whoever they were – seemed to be trying to protect me. I couldn’t just stand there while one of them got zapped to death in front of me.
So, I did the only thing I could think of and charged at a guard as he maneuvered around the big guy. He had his back to me as I shoved him. I surprised him, and he tumbled forward into a couple of the other guards. This set off a chain reaction that was like watching dominoes fall against each other. Enough of them toppled to give the big guy a chance to break free for a second.
“Come on!” I shouted.
“Nice move, kid,” said the big guy as he surveyed the damage I’d inflicted. “Let’s get out of here.” He whacked the last guard trying to hang onto him and turned for the window. The frightened crowd peeled back and left us a straight, unblocked path.
We raced toward the broken window. “This isn’t going to kill us?” I asked.
“Not a chance,” he said. “Well, not much of a chance.” He jumped out the window ahead of me.
“Great,” I said as I flew out the window behind him.
Chapter 3: The Train to Slimewater
I could hear the guards yelling out the window behind me as I fell. The drop must have been sixty feet, just high enough for me to have enough time to realize I was going to die. I saw the big guy land below me and roll away off of some train tracks. I should try to roll like that I thought right before I hit the tracks.
“Oh! Bad landin’,” said the dwarf from behind a rusty control box that had all kinds of wires and cables running out of it.
“Yeah,” said the big guy. “You’re going to have to practice that some more to get it right.”
He scrambled over to where I was lying and pulled me to my feet. He looked up at the window we’d just jumped from. “Let’s get out of here. They’ll be on us any second.”
“That really hurt,” I said. “How am I not dead? I fell sixty feet. I should be dead.”
“We’re made of tougher stuff than that,” said the big guy as he dusted me off. “We’re ogres, right?”
“We’re what?”
“Ogres. We’re all ogres. I mean, this is Ogretonia after all, right? That does kind of give it away,” said the big guy.
“I’m not an ogre. I’m human. Besides, ogres aren’t even real.” The big guy looked puzzled.
“Trains comin’,” called the dwarf from behind his metal box. “And so are the guards.” He pointed back at the building we just jumped out of.
I could tell from out here that the stadium we’d just jumped out of was really big – huge in fact. I turned and looked around me. It was night, and I was in a city. But it wasn’t a normal city; it looked like a dirty, dingy city from the past had been crammed onto a junked up, nightmare metropolis from the future. There were antique streetlights lit by warm golden flames around the train station. Out beyond the train station there were long tubes running all over everything; they were made of smudged glass and rusty metal that were filled with a dimmer version of the blue glowing plasma that I saw inside the stadium. The buildings were tall and made out of stained copper, brass, and tin – covered with lots of grimy windows, hoses, cables and chains. They were all jammed together so that the city looked like a giant broken down machine with steam leaking from every crack and billowing from all the pipes and chimneys and metal vents. Everything looked like it was barely holding together, like it was going to bust apart and fall to pieces any second.
“Okay. I get it. This is not my home. It doesn’t even look like my world,” I said. “Where are we?”
“Are you okay, kid? You must have really banged up your head,” The big guy turned my head towards him, pushed my eyelids way up, and looked in my eyes. “That’s weird, you look fine.”
I pushed his hands away. “Where am I? This place is crazy. It’s full of ugly green . . . people? . . . you’re not even people! I don’t even see any real people around. And the buildings are all crazy and rickety looking and made out of metal. What kind of place is this?”
“Come on. Let’s get him on the train.” said the dwarf. “We can figure out what’s wrong with him back at the Goat.”
A warning bell clanged as the train rumbled up to the platform blowing steam and throwing sparks. The train chuffed and chugged to a full stop. I’ve never seen anything that looked so powerful before. It was ginormous; it was as big as a row of oversize buses strung together, with huge metal wheels beneath dented fenders running the length of it. It looked like a giant metal centipede monster. It was made mostly of riveted black metal plates that were scarred with scorch marks from the still flying sparks and drenched with sweat from the condensing steam; it made a terrible grinding noise as the metal plates shifted and settled against each other. Like every other mechanical thing here, it had the metal and glass tubes running all over it filled with the dim blue plasma. The ground was shaking from the power of the thing.
A metal accordion door clattered open and a short stepladder dropped down right in front of us.
“All aboard,” shouted the dwarf as he climbed up the ladder and into the passenger car. The big guy hefted me up onto the ladder and followed me up. As soon as we were aboard, the door clattered shut and the train started to chug slowly away from the station. We ducked into the first cabin to our right and slid onto the metal bench seats; the big guy and the dwarf sat side-by-side opposite me. The big guy took up about two thirds of the bench while the dwarf sat comfortably in the leftover space next to the window.
“Okay. So, I have no idea what’s going on,” I said.
The big guy and the dwarf looked at each other.
“I have no idea where I am . . . or even what I am.” I held my hands out and rotated my arms so that I could exam them from every angle. I was completely green. “I mean, this looks real. I’m green.”
“We’re all green,” said the big guy. He nodded and turned to the dwarf, trying to get him to nod along with him. The dwarf rolled his eyes.
“Why would you not be green?” said the dwarf.
“Because I’m human!”
“Human?” said the big guy. “You said that before.”
“Yeah, human. You know, normal. Not green. And certainly not an . . . ogre.” I turned to look out the window. I could see buildings flash by as we zipped through the city. The dim blue and orange lights were just a blur now. We were moving really fast. And then I noticed my reflection.
“How did I even get here?” I asked.
“Where were you before?” said the big guy.
“I was . . . I was . . . you know, I can’t really remember.” I said. “That’s weird. The last thing I remember was . . . falling asleep. Going to bed. Maybe this is a dream.”
“Not a dream,” said the dwarf. He had his chin resting in his hand and he was looking out the window into the night.
“But I’m not an ogre!”
“Sure look like one,” said the dwarf.
“I’m not!” I said. “And these aren’t even my clothes.” I waved my hands over the ogre clothes I was wearing. “Man, I’ve got to get out of here.”
The big guy stood up. He had to stay bent over because he was too tall to stand upright. He took a step towards the window, turned back around, and took a step back towards the door of the cabin. He stopped, turned around again, and to took a step back towards the window.
“You’re gonna pace?” said the dwarf.
“It helps me think,” said the big guy.
“What do you need to think about? The kid’s an ogre,” said the dwarf. “I’m an ogre dwarf. You’re an ogre giant. And he’s an ogre kid. S
imple, really.”
“But I’m telling you I’m not an ogre. I’ve never even seen an ogre before,” I said. “I’m a boy – a human boy. Where I come from, you guys don’t even exist. And I want to go back there.” I pulled my legs up to my chest and turned away from them towards the window. The blue and gold lights raced past outside.
The giant (I might as well call him that now) stopped in mid-stride and turned to me. “You’re not making this up, are you?”
“No.”
“He’s not making it up,” said the giant.
“It doesn’t seem like it, does it?” said the dwarf, sounding skeptical. “It makes no sense at all. But I have to admit, he sounds like he’s tellin’ the truth.”
“I am!”
“Makes no sense,” said the dwarf. He stood up. “Move over, I need to pace now.”
The giant sat back down. “What’s your name?” he said as the dwarf paced back and forth between us.
“Grady. Grady Burr.”
The dwarf stopped. “What kind of name is that?”
“Human,” I said and gave him an I-told-you-so smile. He waggled his head and mirrored my expression.
“Grady Burr.” The giant said it slowly like he was tasting each of the syllables. “Well, Grady Burr, I’m Baerwald, the giant, and this is Elganbok, the dwarf.”
“And you thought my name was weird?”
“Kid acts like an ogre,” said Elganbok. “Got the right attitude.”
“I’m not an ogre.”
The train shuddered and began to slow down. A warning bell clanged. “This is our stop,” said Baerwald.
The train came to a complete stop. I could see the passengers through the windows of our cabin that faced into the interior of the train car. The ogres shoved and fought with each other trying to be the first ones off the train. While they were doing this, other ogres were fighting to get up the stepladders and into the train car. We pushed our way past the incoming passengers and out towards the exit doors.
Once we were within sight of the doors, Baerwald said, “Do whatever you have to in order to get out that door.” He grabbed my arm and heaved me along with him.
Elganbok climbed up and over a fat angry looking ogre woman. She swatted at him with both hands. He jumped out of her reach and hopped from ogre head to ogre head moving towards the door. The angry ogres tried to catch him or hit him or stop him, but he was so fast and slippery that none of them could touch him.
“Somebody smack that baby!” an ogre shouted as the dwarf hopped over one last ogre head and out into the night.
Just as the doors started to accordion shut, Baerwald lifted me off my feet and shoved through the crowd. In his shrill fake-ogre-lady voice, he called out, “Make way for the mother of that baby!” He steamrolled right through the other ogres and crashed out through the door, tearing it off its hinges. We tumbled out onto the station platform and rolled over each other until we came to a stop against the base of a lamp post.
“Took you long enough,” said Elganbok.
I untangled myself from the giant, stood up, and looked around to see that this part of the city was even grungier than the part of the city back near the stadium. There were sheets of rusty metal bolted over most of the buildings here, but everything still looked like it could fall to pieces and crumble to the ground if the wind changed direction. Everything looked broken and beat up.
“Welcome to Slimewater Flats,” said Baerwald. He stood up and spread his arms wide.
There was a scent in the air like rotten cabbage. Actually, it was more of a stench than a scent, and more like a backed up sewer than rotten cabbage. Nice.
“No place like it in the world,” said the dwarf. He and the giant pulled off their costumes and stuffed them into a bin that leaned against a nearby wall.
“It looks pretty empty here,” I said. “Where is everybody?”
“Watchin’ the game,” said the dwarf. “Where else would they be?”
“Everybody? I mean, except for the train being crowded, there’s hardly anybody around. And it seems like a pretty big city.”
“It is a good sized city, but most cities are way bigger,” said the dwarf. “And when there’s a game, almost every single ogre in this city or any other will be watchin’ it, either in the stadium – if they’re lucky – or on the picture tube. One way or another, we’re gonna get our ogreball!”
“The Goat is this way,” said Baerwald as he headed towards a narrow alley between two buildings that were leaning dangerously towards each other, like they might topple into each other any second.
The dwarf and I followed him to the end of the alley. There was a padlocked iron door there with a handmade sign that read, “No Entry” fastened to it.
The giant pulled out a small leather tool kit, untied it, and offered it to the dwarf.
The dwarf carefully selected one of the tools, picked the lock, and handed the tool back to the giant, who put it back in his tool kit.
The dwarf opened the door and stepped inside. He found a candle in a nook in the wall and lit it. He descended a stairwell that disappeared into the dark below, the giant and I followed closely behind him.
The smell got worse the farther down we went. And the walls got damper and slicker, to the point where there was actually slimy moss covering them by the time we got to the bottom.
The stairwell ended on a landing that opened onto a narrow canal. On either side of the canal were ledges that ran along the walls about two feet above the waterline. The water smelled awful and was really slimy looking. I guess that’s where they got the name Slimewater.
We walked along the ledge past battered doors, rusty iron grates, and narrow alleys that disappeared into the dark until we arrived at a large alcove lit by sputtering blue lamps. The alcove turned out to be a dock area tucked under an ancient looking building. There were small boats tied to the pilings, the motion of the water made them bob and rock and bump against the dock.
The sputtering blue lamps flashed suddenly and grew brighter. Lights all along the canal crackled and burned brighter at the same time.
“The game must be over,” said the giant.
“Perfect timin’, too,” said the dwarf. “Home sweet home.”
“This is it,” said the giant. “The Flaming Goat, the best tavern in all of Slimewater.” He led us up a short wooden stairway to a large metal door with torches mounted on either side. He knocked twice, waited, knocked twice again, and then pounded his fists into the door so hard I thought he was going to knock it off its hinges.
He kept pounding until a voice rasped from inside. “Alright, alright already! Give me a chance to get these locks undone.”
We could hear keys jangling, bolts sliding, latches being flipped, the gears of a tumbler being spun, and finally, a loud click. The door swung open to reveal a short, shriveled up ogre that was older than any other ogre I’d seen so far. He had chains roped all over him and clusters of keys dangling everywhere: big keys, small keys, crazy-looking keys that had electric sparks crackling over them. He also had a few clumps of locks hanging from his chains. The combination of chains, locks, and keys looked so heavy that it was hard to believe he could move at all. This guy was obviously ready for any kind of locking situation.
He looked disappointed. “Oh, it’s you,” he said with complete disinterst. He stepped back to let us in.
“It’s good to see you, too, Sniffchomp,” said the giant, laughing.
“Still can’t get a real job, hunh?” the dwarf said to the old ogre as we walked past him into the building.
Sniffchomp tried to kick at the dwarf, but the chains he wore were so heavy that he could barely lift his foot without toppling over. He ended up giving a pathetic little kick that sent him stumbling off balance and back into the door. His weight made it slam shut, and he slid down along it to the floor.
I raced over to him and tried to pull him to his feet. He looked panicked when he saw me. “You can’t bring a child in here
!” he said, flapping his arms wildly. “It’s against all the rules!”
Baerwald and Elganbok came over quickly and moved to either side of him. “It’s not that simple,” said Baerwald. Together we hefted him up to a standing position.
“Brunda isn’t going to like it one bit,” said Sniffchomp. He waved us away. “I’m fine. I just lost my balance for a second.” He eyeballed me like I was covered in radioactive question marks.
We made sure he could stand on his own. “I’m sure she’ll understand once we explain the situation to her,” said Baerwald. The three of them looked at each other and burst into laughter.
Sniffchomp wiped a laugh tear from his eye. He spent a moment rearranging his chains – making a weak little hopping motion to settle them back into place. Then he turned to the door and went about rolling the tumblers, flipping the latches, sliding the bolts, and re-locking all of the locks until the door was completely secure again.
“The match just ended,” he said. “I don’t think you missed any of the end-of-game fighting, yet.”
The giant and the dwarf stopped, looked at each other with enormous grins, turned, and rushed up the stairs, elbowing and clawing at each other as they raced out of sight.
“Not a fan?” the old ogre asked, looking surprised that I was still standing there. He shook his head. “That’s almost unheard of. Kids these days! What’s the world coming to?”
Chapter 4: The Flaming Goat
I could hear the ruckus before I even got into the tavern.
As I climbed the stairs, I could hear what sounded like a riot: there were loud shouts, threats, curses, laughter, the sound of glass shattering and wood being smashed to pieces, furniture scraping across the floor, grunting, punching, smacking, slapping, a loud bang, and then dead silence.